nosagcd 088 - SOLVEIG WIKMAN, PIANO // PLAYS DAG LUNDIN

Dag Lundin may be said to be a ‘tonal composer of today’, one who has never been interested in radical experiments in his composing. He treats the instruments and the singing voice in a traditional manner and prefers to write music that appeals to the general public. All music must be melodical and have a main thread, a connecting thought, he says; it may be in some repetition, a bass line, a rhythm or a special motive. Dag Lundin’s musical style can be described as a Nordic constellation of late Romanticism and Impressionism with elements of folk music.

Solveig Wikman´s debut on the concert platform took place in 1965 and since then she has given concerts as a soloist, performed chamber music and acted as an accompanist all over Sweden, the neigh-bouring Nordic countries and other countries. She has also played piano duets with her husband Bertil Wikman for concerts, radio, TV and recordings. Since 1978 she has been one of Sweden’s few full-time pianists, at present at Sörmland’s Music & Theatre.
For many years Solveig Wikman has been one of the first to take an active part on behalf of Dag Lundin’s piano compositions. Many of them have been performed at concerts and some have been recorded for Radio Sweden.

www.audaud.com: "(---)Don’t let the unfamiliar composer, titles and record label dissuade you from enjoying this Very (with a Capital V) accessible collection of very tonal music for piano. Dag Lundin’s musical style can be said to be a Nordic mix of Late Romanticism and Impressionism with Swedish folk music elements. But that doesn’t describe the delightful melody-spinning and almost pop element in this highly tonal music. The composer is also a reviewer, music journalist and debater, so he obviously wants to communicate with his audiences, and his little suites of pieces efficiently do just that. Some of them sound like Grieg piano music brought somewhat up to date. Even the opening Sonatina has only three and four-minute movements and is as tuneful and short on heavy development as the rest of the two dozen short tracks on this CD. Pianist Wikman presents the pieces with great clarity and elan, and the sound is first rate.
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Records International: "(---)Lundin's music is resolutely tonal, sometimes neo-classical in style, sometimes more late Romantic with touches of the Nordic sounds of Grieg and, more recently, Sæverud and Lars-Erik Larsson. His Sonatina (1992) has a Nordic-tinged first movement, a siciliano nocturne and a virtuoso toccata finale. The Iceland Variations are the major work here, a half-hour-long work based on an Icelandic folk tune whose variations are couched in old genres (Sarabande, Humoresque, Berceuse etc.) and in which the solitary, bleak landscapes of the island are often evoked. The origins of the remaining pieces are European folk-songs of various provenance, most attractively presented and, in the case of the Scottish Glengarry, varied. "